Holiday time and meetings

Harbour Lights Poets (ride again).

Time to remind our friends that the next meeting of the Harbour Lights poets will be on Sunday 29^th of July.  For the sake of any new guests to our group we gather at 2pm in the meeting room above the Harbour Lights Café at the Look and Sea centre, by the beautiful River Arun in Littlehampton. West Sussex. For more info, email: dafbelt@outlook.com

Everybody is welcome, watchers and listeners are just as warmly invited as poets and writers of any level, in fact we love to encourage, help or advise and greet beginners or just sit and lap up more experienced visiting poets work. Please do join us for a couple of hours.

Steve, Anthony Towers and I have been on a swimming and hiking holiday in Reifnitz on the Wörtersee in Austria, where the surroundings are stunningly, breathtakingly scenic and inspiring.

Looking toward the mountains in Slovenia from our table at dinner last night

A Hike in Austria

Taking what was less than a path uphill

just after breakfast with some time to kill,

needing to shake holiday sloth away

Crank up the limbs to work more than just play.

Rising sharply from the village below

Into thick woodland where dark shadows grow.

A deer leapt, the flash of furry rust red

of his flanks as through sunlight he sped.

A mountain stream spat the tiniest frog

who crawled up a leaf and on to a log,

through trees we saw a marvellous vista

turquoise lake surface of sparkling glister.

Give thanks to fortune to have such a life,

hand in hand fondly, a husband and wife.

Mouse Mountain

A mountain side cowshed turned

into a chic hotel conversion.

From fancy brochure we learned

funky individuality emersion.

Each room furnished

by a well known designer

wall art, coffee table

and smooth leather recliner.

The trendy restaurant serves

Dishes, artistic yet regional,

wide reaching and international

wine list and fruit that was seasonal.

The vast buffet breakfast presents

Swiss delicacies and specialities

Experienced staff that were fluent

in languages for all nationalities.

Early morning breakfasters

were it seemed, few on the ground.

On that morning just one other

couple entered, glancing around.

They strolled to the far end and

he sat down with his back to the wall,

she took the seat opposite, facing him.

She looked in and he could see all.

Between our two tables appeared

the furriest mouse I ever saw

lush mountain coat, a comic appearance

fur coated mice in such places are law.

Insects and rodents don’t bother me

but watching her husband’s eyes….

Turned to see what it was he saw;

She screamed, blood curdling cries.

She kept on bellowing her alarm

skirt held tight climbed on a chair

I turned to face my other half

he went and hid by the buffet there.

The manager apologised to the lady

who was still distraught by that.

He brought a mousetrap and the cat;

Placed them both near to where she sat.

That couple left the hotel soon after

leaving behind the horror of the house.

On my dessert plate that evening was

a huge ice cream with a marzipan mouse.

An Enforced Break

Hello to you all,

Sorry things went a bit quiet, but the day after the last meeting at the Harbour Lights Café

 I fell off my bike during a training session and spent the rest of the day in A & E at Worthing Hospital. The X-Ray showed that I had broken both my Ulna and Radius in my left arm.

Since I was told that they were compacted, I was subjected to an experience much like being put on the rack, to try to pull the bones out and into line again. I wasn’t wild about that. 

It involved one doctor holding my arm just below the elbow and the senior doctor hauling the lower part and further stretching the hand using his thigh as a lever. Final stages shown here.

They put a three-quarter cast on the arm leaving room for the expected swelling. It did swell and turn all shades of purple. Anyway I am still in plaster, a complete pretty purple one now,

but hope to be cut out of it in a few weeks.

However I am still managing to get a little training done.

I am doing a brisk walk pretty much daily and a turbo training at home.

This is with the added use of a couple of big cushions over my handle bars.

I can type using my right hand, and the index finger of the left hand 

which is not as stiff as the others digits.

Meeting your first Alien

Last evening I saw my husband chatting to our next door neighbours at the rear of our garage.

They are a lovely young couple with a little boy of pre-school age, soon to have his 4th birthday

After a few moments Steve came into the house to get me and told me that little Héctor wanted to see my broken arm, if I wouldn’t mind; they had stopped by to ask how I was.

I went out and was greeted by the little boy’s look of complete astonishment.

He had never heard of such a thing, let alone seen anybody he knew with an arm set in a plaster cast. He eyed the purple fingers and the bruises around my elbow with amazement. 

“Does it hurt Daf” he asked.

I told him that it did hurt a bit but that it felt better since the Doctors at the hospital mended it

 and put it in the plaster until it was OK again.

He looked bewildered, so I knocked the plaster so that he could hear the funny noise it made.

His big brown eyes widened even further, he looked from my face to the plaster and back several times. I invited him to knock to see how hard it was.

He clenched his little fist and did a sample soft knock and then tried a slightly louder one.

His mother took him by the other hand and moved to leave prompting the little boy said

 “What have you come to say to Daf Héctor”?

“Get well soon Daf”, he said, still looking as though he had met his first alien.

He waved goodbye to me as he was walked away into his own garden.

He is such a cute little guy, bless him, I thought, bless his little heart.

The pure wonderment of children!

I have taken a few acupuncture appointments at Harmony Acupressure in Chichester, that seems to have helped with the bruising and swelling as well as my stress levels. A very peaceful treatment.

 The date of my latest accident was five years almost to the day

 since I had a fall whilst out running on holiday in Italy.

That time was worse, since there was also a broken foot to cope with and lacerations.

The poems and story below were written then telling of my difficulties and about my first outing a few days after doing that. 

On that occasion as now I told myself that my broken bones would heal themselves in the fullness of time and held that in my mind.  There are thousands of people who are much worse off than me. People lose limbs through accidents or acts of war and terrorism, mine is in the light of that thought simply a temporary inconvenience. This is the incredible Rudy Garcia Tolsen pictured here at a half Ironman triathlon this summer.

Ups & Downs

Missing my training

Life’s not the same

It’s not even raining

Temporarily lame

Six weeks is a lifetime

Nothing is fun

Not even bath time

Is easily done

The gardens a mess

Can’t get to grips

Left handed trowel-ing

Got any tips

Dust bunnies hiding

All over indoors

Our house is filthy

The shelves and the floors

Doing my bra up

Some clothes I can’t wear

Even lifting a cup

Isn’t easy my dear

Two weeks more

Not so much longer

What I hope for

Is soon to be stronger

Life’s ups and downs

Soon come and go

The strength to get through it

Is what I must show. 

The Pyjama Game

Chichester Festival Theatre

Minerva

Starring

Hadley Fraser

Seats G56-57

May 23^rd 2013

A game indeed

Seats booked months ahead

They sold at the speed of light

Hadley had been Raoul

In ‘Phantom’ previously

I looked forward to it so

Then I was set in plaster

There’d been a fall you see

I wasn’t going to miss it

But how was I to go?

Wild horses wouldn’t stop me

Now it would not be easy

That, it could not be

I called the theatre

Got them on the phone

A few days ahead

Told them of my plight

To find out about seats

It had not mattered when I booked

That my seats were at the back so high

Manager and receptionist checked location

And told me with a sigh

I should come in early

And they would help me to my seat

The Minerva is so neat

For me the very best

But it’s just a bloody bank of stairs

Swirly almost in a circle

No such thing as a bad seat

On the front row

Actors are at your feet

In the top back row you still see all

Getting to our seats

Would be a labour of love

The theatre assistant was most helpful

Drive up to the door she said

And plant me just inside

My husband then could park the car

And I would not have to go too far

It was an effort and a half

Hobbling up to where we’re sitting

The theatre empty at that time

No coming out again at half time

Once settled with my programme

And lots of time to read it through

So I could see who would be who

Soon after the house lights faded

And the first songs were rendered

I realised a new handicap of mine

And this one hurt in quite another way

Couldn’t clap my hands

At songs divinely sung

Could not even wave my arms

Well at least the good one

It would look like something else

My crutch behind my seat was bunged

Could not even tap that down

Being entertained so well but then

Worth all the painful twinges

I’d do the same again. 

I would like to let you know that I have booked the last Sunday in July, August and September for our next meetings. There is not a June meeting due to holidays.

July 29^th

August 26^th

September 29^th

Please make a not in you diaries.

As ever but nobody has ever taken me up on this.

 Please send me anything you might like included in the next news message

Weapon of Choice

Weapon of Choice:

Next meeting of Harbour Lights Poets will be Sunday 27^th of May at 2pm as usual in the meeting room at the Look and Sea Centre above the Harbour Lights Café. My email: dafbelt@outlook.com

Much as I would most often prefer to sit and write when I am at home alone, ‘Poetrising’, as my husband calls it when I sit scribbling away on my own, it was a warm day for a change and I grasped the nettle in more ways than one, taking the opportunity to tidy up out little back garden.

Starting with the Daffodils that had past their most glorious stage, and had finished flowering. All that was left of them was a mess of floppy green leaves. The bedding plants; Geraniums, Petunias, Antirrhinums, and Sweet Peas were all still on the polystyrene boxes, looking as though they were suffering grade A. Pot-bound-itis.

I had pulled lots of the pots forward and had been working on the garden table to save my back from too much bending over. I didn’t want to find that I was not able to ride my bike the next day due to unaccustomed labour. There were several metal pots that did not have draining holes at their base and over winter they had become smelly, soggy, muddy messes and the flowers that were in them when they were bought; Tulips, had suffered from the soaking and completely rotted. They were beyond saving. There weren’t that many of the offending pots and I set about looking for a tool or two that I could get the job done with, without having to wait for Steve to come home and do it for me, when he had been working all day and would want to sit down, have a cup of tea and catch up on the news.

The club hammer was easy to locate in my husbands tool box and a further search through drill bits chisels and other smaller items, brought just the thing to light, a big-ish centre punch. Then having emptied of the mushy goo I set about making a few holes in the bottom of the planters that I need to use.  It wasn’t as easy as I would have thought but I had put some thick gloves to protect my hands,  and set about the job in hand, how hard could it be?

I heard our door bell chime loudly through the open kitchen door. Steve had ordered a new Bar-b-que to replace the old wrecked one, from Amazon and had told me to watch out for the van and man since there was an email declaring that the item was out for delivery.

A few steps through our little cottage took me to the front door and I opened it with a clatter, club hammer in one hand and centre punch in the other. The deliver guy took several steps backwards from the step exclaiming “Whoa Mrs, who you expecting, ‘Annibal Lecter or summick”? He had climbed over our front wall (No, there isn’t a front gate) and had set the heavy looking package down on the pathway before I opened the door. I put down my tools and asked him to just stand the box in the hall for me and added “Please” and a smile, since he was still looking at me in a funny way. He suggested that I should stand back because it was heavy but hoiked the thing up and stood it just inside the front door, I had to squeeze around it to go to sign for the delivery, I scribbled an H and a scrawly L but he didn’t notice and nobody can read those things anyway.

Not more than a few moments after I had got back to my gardening chores, a regular workman that we use for odd household problems, bowled in through the garage at the back into the garden where he found me sitting on a plastic stool, still bearing the same tools that had given the delivery guy such a start. Just one step back this time, because this man had known me for a number of years. “Jesus Daphne, WTF are you doing with a club hammer?

I indicated first to the pot and explained “No draining holes”. Then the centre punch and then the club hammer and a short mime, before saying that I was not aware of any restrictions on girls using tools!

Having put the tools down and stepped toward the kitchen to turn the kettle on to make tea, I turned to see my husband, home early, stepping through the garage and into the mess of pots and plants. He spotted the club hammer lying on the ground and became the third man in half an hour to question my ability to do a simple job for myself.

“What ARE you doing with my club hammer”?

“Well, for a start, think it was my dad’s club hammer, though, due to our marriage, I suppose it could be deemed ‘Our’ club hammer, one of our ‘Worldly goods’”. I went on to say that I did not know that I had to pass a test to use it.

Steve made the holes in the rest of the pots that I indicated, but still giving me a levelling look and later on I told him that I might lay claim to it. It obviously had some magical power, since three normal looking workmen, had all found something new and a little bit scary in me when holding the said tools.

As a bit of a scribbler, I am well aware that poets and writers have long claimed that the pen is mightier that the sword but nobody ever took a few steps back from me when I stood with gel pen in my hand as they had done that day when I brandished my new weapon of choice.

 

Pen versus Sword

The Pen, so it is said, is mightier than the sword.

Yet ever since this was said, the assertion has been in dispute.

Support is split in the hundreds of cartoons, posters, tee shirts,

mugs and caps.

Sword v Pen

Literally, we all know it to be untrue.

Were the two weapons put to the test.

An arm would be cut off, and the pen would fall from the severed limb.

The hulk holding the sword would claim victory and march off

waving his blood dripping weapon.

The writer would quickly bleed to death.

Pen v Sword

On the other hand, (pardon the pun), intelligent people can write stirring stuff, get themselves lodged in high places, change laws, start rebellions,

and sway those in power and have ignorant, violent monsters locked away.

Wield or Yield

This question still stands. as we see in the school playground,

where the bully can still rule.

Yet very often the bullying is done with words:

Spiteful things said, threats on Facebook and text messages.

Quill or blade can strike with equal cruelty.

An accurate, articulate word or a murderous swing of the sword.

Both decidedly deadly.

                                      Painting by our talented cousin Sally Hoolican-Cooper

Mixed Blessings

 Wood Anemones on Angmering Park Estate Woodlands

With spring, sort of easing more into early summer, I always start to feel livelier. I am not a good do-er in winter as the farming community say. There is no denying that I am much happier in summer with more light and warmer weather about. We are also into wedding season and I have two reasons to mention this. 

One is that my friend Michelle Chittenden (who has made a couple of visits to our poetry group meetings) ‘s daughter Chelcie, who along with her fiancée Matt were recently in the local papers because having been turned away from hospital after checking in with rapid contractions: then immediately delivered her own sweet baby Zahra at home as soon as they got indoors! What a drama but the excitement in the family does not end there because. Matt and Chelcie then a couple of weeks later, won a wedding competition on Spirit FM Radio worth £15,00.00 (Yes fifteen thousand pounds). They are now in a position to name the day and not have to wonder where all the money would be coming from, so very well done and many congratulations to the happy couple on their mixed blessings. They were also to be heard on Spirit FM Radio talking about it. You can find that broadcast for a while on the Spirit FM website on the afternoon show. 3-7pm I think it was.

The other reason for bringing spring weddings into the chat is that my photographer daughter Jacqueline Rackham gave me a challenge/stroke, my very first commission when she asked me to write a light humoured poem that could be used to ask the over enthusiastic congregation not to spoil all the best shots as they snapped away with their mobile phones. My immediate and first response to the plea is this poem below: I did offer the change anything that she did not like, and she responded that she liked it but it was too long. At that point I thought it might be a good idea to throw this challenge out to everybody on our group email list and indeed the blog page. Please feel free to send your own idea’s for Jakki. Rik; perhaps this is one for you since you do like a bit of humour and have a way with words that send the corners of the mouth retreating in the cheeks of our amused faces. Please all have a think about this as an idea for next weeks meeting on Sunday 22^nd. 

 

 

Mixed Blessings

The long awaited and worked for wedding day

for which they diligently saved up all their pay,

should be the happiest day of their life

when they wait to be husband and wife.

This day is theirs when two hearts connect

And we should give them all of our respect.

Let us think about them walking down the aisle

setting our own needs aside just for a while.

They’re paying a professional to record each minute

The perfect photograph: NOT WITH YOUR ARM IN IT!

Take your own snaps on your mobile phone

but don’t spoil this special day for your own

satisfaction in your rush to take a shot,

that it is their day, you momentarily forgot.

Bide your time for later on when it’s clear

you won’t spoil the day for those you hold dear.

Hold back your happy but forceful enthusiasm

or twix your love and them may form a chasm.

A quick thoughtless action from yourself

might cast a shadow on the living room shelf.

Let them have this special day’s recollection

Keep mobile phone hidden beyond detection.

Thank you.

For those among us who frequent our beautiful woods one a year maximum just the see the Bluebells in their full glory, I have to point out that the photos here today were taken on the Angmering Park Estate woodlands just south of the Monarchs Way but the Wood Anemones are rife right now and will only last for viewing until the bluebells completely overwhelm them as they always do. They are a vision and do for all the world look like a very light late dusting of snow.

Wooden Enemies

My husband thought this was what I had said

For some years he thought this correct.

My ear did not discern that he’d missed the thread

That he had filed it in his head so defect.

It was when I pointed to his disbelief

During a tramp thru’ a patch in a woody bank

How you see they are anemones by the leaf

He claimed I had a point and to me he’d thank.

Then it was when he confessed his mistake;

For ‘Wooden Enemies’ he thought was their name,

For so many years, he laughed, for goodness sake!

It all made sense Wood Anemone sounds the same.

What indeed is in a name as was said of old?

Aren’t they just a pretty with either brand?

They’ll still show their star to sunshine bold

And close the bell when evening is at hand

 Zahra

Zooming fearlessly into the world to delight

A light weight at five pounds and ounces, five.

However she has shown she is up for a fight

Ready to spread her joy that she’s alive.

Appearing a pretty and strong little mite.

Zahra knows to make an entry with style 

A girl in a big hurry to join the party

Hastens to stamp her mark with a smile

 Rushing to greet us with a welcome hearty.

As delivered by Mum in life’s first trial.

Poetry at the Harbour Lights Café: Meeting No. 6

This message is well overdue and I do send you all my apologies for that.

I have been completely snowed under with all sorts of things that have had to come before poetry I’m afraid. One of the worst things about winter is as we all know that not only are there more nasty bugs and illnesses about but there seem to be more people shuffling off this mortal coil.

There is a funeral on Monday of a cousin of mine and only this week my daughters Jakki’s mother-in-law died suddenly. The death of my cousin caused a flurry of contact from several of my other cousins, who because we are scattered apart, I had not been in contact with since the last family funeral about a year ago.

This is basically just to remind everybody that the next meeting at the Look and Sea meeting room above the Harbour Lights Café is booked for Sunday week March 25^th. Hopefully everybody is looking forward to that as much as I am.

Still, spring is springing up all around us and my tiny little garden has pots full of tiny Tête-à-tête, competing with Tulips, Violets and Pansies that are a lovely contrast to all the horribly depressing news of late. The only good thing about this time of year is that there are loads of good movies to go and see thanks to the Academy Awards and good old Oscar,

compared to summertime when there is a glut of animated family films for the holidays.

 

The little poem here is the result of badly missing our next door neighbours of twenty years who returned early last summer to the small town in the Alsace, where they lived before their move to England. I had been finding it strange that the beautiful red Camellia that peeps over the six foot brick into our garden, has been so very late to flower this year and being a bundle of emotion and imagination myself, I had got it into my head that even their garden flowers and the family of Blackbirds and the Sparrows that reside in the big Camellia have been missing them as much as I have. They are both musicians (The people that is, not the blackbirds) and I have even missed the scales they practiced every afternoon on their saxophones. Our new neighbours are not at all friendly as yet. So this is to Christine and Jan who also ran, walked and swam regularly at all the same places as Steve and I. It was Christine who painted the portrait of me that hangs by my desk and is the subject of a previously read poem of mine,  Portrait of my Soul.

Red Camellia

Peaking over the high garden wall

showing no fear of winter yet unfinished,

surviving through to spring from fall

her strength and beauty undiminished.

Breaking buds like crimson velvet

changing to wonderful deep pink flower

above our wall shows a flashy pelmet

glows thru’ afternoon sunlight hours.

Thank heaven for Mother Nature’s gift

bursting forth despite the cold,

that brings a smile and spirits lift,

born of winter, this colour bold.

I usually mention that if you have a poem that you would like share with the group that I will happily put it on the next blog page. So far though, nobody has taken me up on this offer. Hope to see you all well and happy and free of germs at the next meeting.

 

Saxophones’

 Through the Dividing Wall

Terrace houses may not be ideal

walls are thin and some people moan,

yet there are  benefits I feel

especially when at home alone.

There is a pleasure sweet and real

music floats through on a saxophone,

musician’s next door is such a deal,

practicing scales in a melodic drone.

A home with built in concert appeal

lifts me as I type or answer the phone

pretty waltz as thru chores I reel

cares have through the window flown.

Contact email: dafbelt@outlook.com

Start as you mean to go on

Start as you mean to go on.

Well that’s that then, all the Christmas and New Year stuff completely done with once again. Now we can get on with the good things that we are aiming at in 2018.  It is good so to have goals and I have plenty of my own that I am looking forward too. Looking forward is a devil of a lot more sensible than looking back; we surely are all agreed on that. Onwards and upwards.

Steve and I have been on holiday for a very greedy 18 days with literally mountains of snow, the most we have ever seen. We have been away on a winter holiday almost every year that we have been together, apart from the couple of years when Steve’s mum was suffering failing health. I gave up skiing a few years ago after my last skiing injury took 10 weeks out of my triathlon training and when I decided which sport was most important to me, the one that lasted a week or so or the one that has filled my life for so many years.

This year Steve has not skied either, and so instead we had a concentrated swimming holiday in the unbelievably awesome Ovaverva Centre. We stayed in the Hotel Reine Victoria right across the road from the pool in St. Moritz, Switzerland. We swam every morning at 10am and did not get back to our hotel until about 1pm. No, we didn’t swim all that time, but each session was at least twice as long as any we do at home and we swam every day, instead of four times a week which is our usual.

 These two are my husband Stephen on the Cresta Run thirty years ago

The Ovaverva also has a large outside pool with massage jets of every kind so you could sooth aching muscles or loosen any stiff areas, whilst gazing at the breathtaking Engadin Valley Mountains on the clear days or experiencing the most unusual effect of being snowed on as you relax in the hot steaming water. Actually on one day we were swimming in a blizzard with tiny drops of ice pinging into any part that was out of the water. Regular dips of the head under the water were essential to stop your head freezing off.

Tomorrow we are spending some of the day watching our GB Bob and Skeleton men and women on a practise day before the World Cup event that follows. Steve and I are both great fans of the sliding sports and have both ventured on one of the guest runs they arrange every now and again in a four man bob. Steve can make a much greater claim, in that he has on a number of occasions in the past ridden the Cresta Run. Last year we took a weekend trip to St Moritz for a World Cup downhill ski event, so you see we are a pair of winter sports fans extraordinaire. Soon to come, is the European Figure Skating Championships and of course the Winter Olympic Games.

Two much younger Belties on an early ski holiday years ago

This morning was the opening of entries for a regular yearly favourite event of ours, the 2018 Swimathon at the end of April. We both entered first thing today for the 5000 mtr event. You can do shorter distances or choose your own distance. I always recommend the inclusion of this challenge in a triathletes training because you don’t often have the chance of a long uninterrupted swim like that, with a lap counter and of course a medal if you need any more, and it is a great confidence booster.

Next event that we will enter very soon before it is full is another local event to us in Littlehampton that being the Tuff Fitty Triathlon Club’s Frosty or Frost-bite, a really fun friendly event. It is a swim run 400mtr/5km or 800mtr/10km. A great social event.

World Champion biathlete Martin Fourcade

Steve and I have two Ironman 70.3 races, also already entered, to look forward to in June as our main aims for the year. The first is Elsinore in Denmark which we so enjoyed last year and is European Championships again. Then 13 days later a new one at that distance in Lahti, Finland. As yet we have only entered one other event and that will be a new experience for me though not for Steve. We and a few of the usual suspects from our circle have entered the Dart 10Km. This is a point to point river swim in the River Dart needless to say. The swim is in September.

I think this 2018 plan shows a basic determination not to spend too much time thinking we are bored. Boredom is not something I suffer with ever.

On what is clearly another quite separate plain, we will be forging on with getting the monthly meeting of The Harbour Lights Poets up and running with the help of Arun District Council have given us a Small Arts Grant and that will pay the hire fee for three months, paying for our time in the meeting room above the Harbour Lights Café, at the Look and Sea centre by the River Arun in Littlehampton. Poets, Writers, Playwrights, readers, listeners and watchers all equally welcome. Buy your tea of coffee and come on up, you do not have to be a member.

Next meeting is coming up fast.

January 21^st at 2pm